Trump's new pitch for Republican candidates

President Donald Trump has a new pitch for Republican candidates: they're easy on the eyes.

"Look at this beautiful guy," Trump said at a Saturday rally in Kentucky, referring to US House candidate Ed Gallrein, a former US Navy SEAL with an angular face who stood nearby the stage. "Central casting."

That's a common refrain from Trump, who owned the Miss Universe beauty pageant and grew his clout on the reality television show The Apprentice before entering politics. Aesthetics have long been part of the president's measuring stick, either as a source of praise or a target for ridicule.

Now, Trump is deploying his handsomeness appraisals as he boosts Republican candidates in the midterm elections, which already include debates over which candidates are more masculine. The outcome will determine whether Republicans keep control of Congress or Trump faces emboldened Democratic opposition in Washington.

Soon after Trump touted Gallrein's beauty on Saturday, he mentioned Sen Jon Husted, the Ohio Republican running for re-election, and described him as "a perfect person, a good-looking guy".

"I examined his a**," said Trump, eliciting laughter. "I never did that with a man before. I examined his a**. And then I looked at his shoulders. I looked at his feet. I looked at his hand. I looked at his jawline."

It was a reprise of Trump's droll assessment from an earlier rally in Ohio, when he also touted Husted's past as a college football player.

Not all Republicans are so lucky, as Ken Paxton has learned.

"I don't really like the way he looks," Trump said about the Republican Senate candidate in Texas during the party's midterm convention as Paxton stood nearby, grinning.

Trump previously said that "it's so insulting to him, but I might as well say it". He added that Paxton's conservative record as attorney general "speaks a lot louder than the suit he's wearing that doesn't look so great".

Democrats are far from safe from the president's visual judgements. Trump says Paxton's opponent, Democratic candidate James Talarico, reminds him of Alfred E. Neuman, the freckled, gap-toothed MAD magazine mascot.

And he had a disparaging assessment of Sen Jon Ossoff, a Democratic heartthrob with a jawline rivalling Husted's. Trump compared him to Pee-wee Herman, the comedy character with a waxy face and widow's peak, while rallying for Ossoff's opponent, Rep Mike Collins, in Georgia on Friday.

"Somebody said, 'He's a good-looking man,' I don't think he's a good-looking man," Trump said. "I actually think Mike Collins is a good-looking man, and he's all man."

He then moved on to the Republicans' nominee for Georgia governor.

"And I actually think that Rick Jackson is a very handsome, distinguished, beautiful-looking guy," Trump said.